THE SIXTH SENSE

A brief introductory tale: some months ago, I went to my favorite music shop and met the dealer, now a friend of mine, who showed me a CD where everything was written in Cyrillic and I couldn't even guess the band's or the album's name. We, immediately, started an ouija session, in the hope that Tchekov or Gorki could appear but instead we got tovarisch Stalin, and it helped few since he wasn't (as ever) very keen in the Russian language. Soon, lights went off, strange sounds were heard, cigar and vodka smelling prevailed and we all feared the moment. we forgot that Uncle Joe's soul resides in the deepest abyss and has a direct line with the Unmentionable. holy cow! I ran home, not forgetting to bear my precious burden and later calmly I discovered a website address occulted (sic) amid the unrecognizable characters, visiting it I deciphered the puzzle and voilà I was finally and officially introduced to LITTLE TRAGEDIES' "The Sixth Sense".

Well, at least, I took a definitive contact with a band I was pursuing for a long time and the pursuit was rewarding since this very first album I heard from LITTLE TRAGEDIES is really admirable. All those magic Eastern sounds appear like waterfalls, from powerful and thunderous parts to bucolic and pastoral passages, and even so sounding like a real symphonic prog-rock, with a copiousness of guitars and keyboards, scored by exquisite vocals in Russian. The band provide the listener with heavy and massive tunes like the Kremlin walls or delicate moments crafted like a Fabergé egg; sometimes it's like feeling the sumptuosity of L'Hermitage corridors or the freshness of riding a troika on a snowy field - all in all "The Sixth Sense" can be compared with a Trans-Siberian travel or a Baykonur rocket launching.

The title-track, also the opener, hits you like a Tunguska impact and the symphony continues through finely shaped songs like 'Bird', 'On the seashore' and 'The prodigal son', full of majestic instrumentation and colorful singing, decaying in the middle-section where in certain moments the samovar produces a cold tea and the papirossi tastes a bit tough - the series of short songs are a bit dull, repetitive. But fresh troops coming from Siberia save the opus in the last two tracks, 'You and I' and the ender which responds by the dramatic title of 'I haven't lived, I've suffered through it.', either finishing the concept in a splendid manner.

I wish I'd label this album with the mastering diploma, but the emptiness of some tracks steals one precious star from it but the final rating is still fabulous. Total: 4.